Chapter 11: The Pit

“Practice is the mother of progress.”

-Unknown.

Yin sat atop the old clock tower. She looked out over the dark, mirror-shine sea, chewing on the last piece of a bready swidwi.

What had once been her favorite hiding spot from the world now gave her nothing but bitterness. She wished she had never shown Wil the clock tower, but it was too late for that now.

Gotta get past it, she thought. I can’t keep letting him hold me back. What I did wasn’t right, but there’s no use crying over someone who’s already dead.

Knowing what she needed to do and actually doing it were two different things, though.

For now, I just need something to forget.

On a whim, she pulled out the card that the powerbrawl announcer had given her. Strangely enough, it was blank, no text or writing of any kind.

Why would he give me a blank card? Was it just a joke? No, that doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s encrypted with a command word.

“Open,” Yin said, holding up the card with both hands and staring at the empty paper. Nothing happened. “Reveal yourself. Powerbrawl. Fight. Fighter. Money. Prize. Tits. Dicks. Freedom.”

She went on like that for a minute with no success. Then, in a flash of inspiration, she realized the thing that announcer loved most.

“Darling.”

The card sprung alive with flowy black writing, bleeding from the paper itself. ‘111 Inxa Street, the Ruins. Bring a plucky attitude,’ it read.

“Wouldn’t you know it,” Yin said.

She made her way down the clock tower and followed the instructions provided, walking from the Perch to the Ruins. Finding Inxa Street proved more difficult, tucked in a winding network of back streets. Eventually, however, Yin found herself looking up at an abandoned storefront with the number ‘111’ on the facade. Utterly unremarkable, by all accounts. She assumed that was how the underground matchmakers liked it.

Stepping inside, she found two armed guards waiting.

“Bit late for you to be up, isn’t it girlie?” one of them said.

“Think you took a wrong turn somewhere,” added the other.

Yin held up the card. “Darling asked me here. Said he’d hook me up with a fight or something. I’m taking him up on that.”

The guards glanced at each other. One of them stepped forward and took Yin’s card, peering closely at it. “Looks authentic. Whaddya say, should we let her in?” He looked back at his partner.

The other man scratched his patchy scalp. “Dunno, man. Doesn’t seem right, her bein’ so young and all. Rubs me the wrong way.”

“I can handle myself,” Yin said. “Just take me to Darling.”

“But—”

She grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted it around, bringing him to one knee with a yelp. Face to face, she hissed, “Take me to Darling. I don’t deal with doormen.”

Screaming followed, then threats of violence, then bargaining, and finally quiet acceptance. She let the man go, and he took her down some stairs into the bowels of the building. Flickering magelights illuminated tight hallways, air thick with the smell of smoke.

“You some kind of freak?” the doorman asked as he walked, rubbing his wrist. “Never seen a powerbrawler as small as you.”

“Exactly right,” Yin said.

The doorman took her back up some stairs that led onto a balcony overlooking an underground arena, sand speckled with blood. A bout had just ended, and a woman with a smashed-in face was being dragged away by two attendants while the winner paraded for onlookers pressed against the chainlink fence surrounding the ring.

A lone man with the stature of a child sat on the balcony, back turned to Yin.

“Uh, terribly sorry to bother you, sir,” the doorman said, hesitantly approaching the chair, “but you’ve got a newcomer ‘ere what wants to see you. She had the card and everythin’.”

Darling spun in his seat. He regarded Yin for a long moment before his eyes lit up with recognition. “Ah! If it isn’t our very own hero! I was hoping you’d come around. Welcome to the Pit.”

The reedling leapt off his chair and waddled up to Yin, waving the doorman away. He wore a flowing, red cape and an open-fronted blouse that displayed an impressive plume of chest hair.

“I want a fight,” Yin said.

Darling cracked a wolflike grin. “I’ve got just the thing for you, dear. You’re hot right now—people want to see you fight. Let’s give them what they want, shall we?”

“When?”

“Give me a few days to set everything up. You’ll need to go through a few tests as well, just to measure how much evo you’ve got in you. These are, strictly speaking, illegal matches, but there are still rules to be considered.”

“Whatever. Just get me a fight.”

Looking down at the ring, hearing the roar of the crowd, she longed to be down there. For them to chant her name.

They would be, soon enough.

*****

Stephan was more than a little concerned.

Yin had been gone until the early hours of the morning. When she did get back, she had gone straight to bed. Even after waking up, she had refused to tell him what she had been doing all night.

She could handle herself, of course. She had proven that time and again. But that didn’t mean she had everything under control. Stephan worried that her fear of abandonment was eating away at her.

I’d better do something nice for her, he thought. Cheer her up somehow. Maybe I could make her a nice meal and put some vids on the scryer tonight. Just an us thing.

But that wasn’t the only thing bothering him. Amaline was thirty minutes late for work. Every day previously, she had shown up at least five minutes early with all the energy of a whirlwind.

Let’s hope she hasn’t fallen back into her old habits.

Stephan made himself a Hard Cola to still his nerves. He sat in a stool by the bar, sipping from the tall glass while he listened to Yin bustle about in her room upstairs.

The bell above the front door tinkled.

“There you are!” Stephan said, turning. “It’s funny, I was worried you’d—”

It wasn’t Amaline standing in the doorway. A thin young man walked into the bar, blood on his shirt.

“Mr. Lordling?” he asked. “We were told to contact you.”

Stephan frowned, slowly rising. There was something familiar about him. “Yes, that’s me. What’s the matter?”

“It’s your, uh, employee? Amaline Amos. She’s in our care.”

That sparked his memory. “You’re Prixis’s assistant, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Amaline is hurt? What happened?”

“We haven’t gotten much out of her,” the assistant admitted. “She’s been in and out of consciousness. It looks like she was beaten, though. Honestly, it’s a near thing if she’ll make it. There’s internal bleeding.”

“Codes,” Stephan murmured. “I… Let me get my daughter, then we can be on our way.”

Stephan swept his cola, shouldered into the back room, and rushed up the stairs.

I’ve got an idea who’s done this to you, Amaline, he thought, rage igniting in his gut.

END OF 'SWEETEST DEVIL' ARC